Page 13 of The Lord of the Labyrinth

“I am what you would call one of the dark Fae. Do you know the name?”

Fae? That was like a fairy. But they weren’t real, or this big. “I thought fairies were small?” She couldn’t help but think of Tinker Bell fromPeter Pan, butRoan was massive, muscled and terrifyingly attractive. Even in stories she’d read of tall, human-sized fairies, they’ all be slender and delicate. Roan was built like a warrior with broad shoulders and muscleseverywhere. Her mouth ran dry as his cruelly beautiful lips twisted into yet another smile.

“Fairy,” Roan chuckled. “Such a quaint twisting of words. But no, pixies, brownies, merrows, kobolds, dwarves—they are small. I am one of the Shining Ones. Everything about me is big.” He trailed a fingertip down the side of her neck, his glowing blue eyes holding hers.“Everything.”

“What is a Shining One?” Kate’s thoughts were still muddled by the heat of his body and the way he had trapped her against the door, caging her in.

“The Shining Ones are the most ancient of the Fae. We were once gods in your land, in the time before time. We ruled the night and the day, the seasons, the flora and the fauna. All was ours to command. Your people called us theSidhe.” He pronounced the wordSidheas “shee,” and she recognized it from her mother’s book of fairy tales.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Iamdreaming.”

Roan’s eyes still glowed. “What you think of as reality is but a veil between your world and mine. Dreams are but an instant when the cosmic winds disturb the veil in between, letting you glimpse this place.”

Was this another sort of reality, then? Was that what he was saying?Kate’s head ached as she tried to understand the immensity of his words.

“Wait.” She lifted her face a little, daring herself to eye him more boldly. “You never explained why theSidheare called the Shining Ones.”

“Because when we let our magic show, weshine. Even the darkest of us.”

“Shine? How?”

Roan was still smiling, but the expression turned almost sinister.

“To show a mortal our shine would be to destroy them. You cannot bear the light of one such as me.”

“Try me,” Kate replied. She wasn’t afraid of light.

Roan’s eyes narrowed. “No. I have no desire to see you destroyed, not when I have plans for you.”

“You can’t even show me a little?” She reached up to touch his chest without thinking. The moment her palm touched his skin, Roan closed his eyes. His features softened briefly as he let out a low growl of animal-like pleasure. He drew in a deep breath, as if breathing in her essence. Kate’s heart kicked into a mad rhythm as her own breathing sped up. Roan caught her wrist with his free hand, holding it against his skin as he finally opened his eyes.

Gray lightning lit his blue eyes as he began to shine like a distant star, and moonlight shimmered around him like mercury, outlining his body as a pair of iridescent pale blue wings materialized behind his shoulders, trailing stardust as they moved. An instant later, the beautiful shine and those mysterious wings were gone.

“Was that enough for you, little one?” His low, rough voice sent delicious shivers through her.

“Um... yes?” The shine had enhanced the hard lines of his jaw and cheekbones, and she wondered if perhaps the Shining Ones might have once been mistaken for angels in her world.

Roan loomed over her for another long moment, the scent of night blooms wafting around them as his gaze lowered to her lips and his eyes closed as if he was lost in a dream himself. His fingers left the door and teased along her throat before closing on her neck in a gentle hold to keep her pinned against the door. He opened his eyes again, and she was captivated by the brilliant blue of them. His thumb stroked her pulse point, and Kate’s body responded. Heat flooded beneath her skin and her heart raced madly. She should be terrified, he could crush her throat with a single squeeze, but he didn’t…and she wasn’t afraid. She was…turned on. Her clit gave a hard throbbing pulse in response to this man’s controlling hold on her.

“What a sweet little pet you will make,” he purred as his lips touched hers, in a hint of a kiss. “I might have to forge a collar under silver starlight to put around your delicate little neck,” he whispered. “Would you like that, little one? To wear my mark of ownership on your body?” Then he slanted his mouth over hers, assaulting her senses with the mastery of his kiss.

Stars burst before her eyes as his lips moved over hers. Kate clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging into his skin. She’d never felt like this, like a kiss held the power to take her life simply from the sheer intensity of it. He tasted sweet, like something she felt she should be able to name but couldn’t. His lips entreated hers to open, and she gasped as his body pressed fully against hers. The feeling of being trapped between the cold wood behind her and the hard, hot body of the man in front of her made her legs tremble. There was hardly anything between her body and his. She felt the press of his cock against her belly, and the overload of sensations and lust was overwhelming.

His kiss demanded dark, delicious things from her. Her mind spun with wild, erotic visions of his naked body and hers entwined in the satin sheets of his bed. Of her wearing nothing but a silver collar and him holding a delicate chain attached to it, wrapped around his fist while he made love to her…ownedher.

“Yes,” he whispered in her mind. “You’re mine now.”

A flash of clarity broke through Kate’s mind. She shoved at the mountain of his shoulders. He backed away, his eyes still glowing bright blue, and licked his lips as if savoring her taste. He reached around her to open the door to his bedroom. She scrambled back from him, but rather than continue his pursuit, he walked past her to the tall silver-and-gold armoire set against one wall. He dropped the towel from around his hips to the floor, and she spun around to avoid staring at his naked ass again.

“You will lose that mortal modesty in time, little one,” he said. “Someday soon you will greet me in nothing but your pretty skin, begging me to take you.”

Little one...He kept calling her that. He didn’t know her name, did he?

“My name is Kate Winslow.” She couldn’t believe she was correcting a naked Fae lord. This was one hell of a dream. And apparently…a very kinky one. She’d never known she’d fantasied about a man putting a collar around her neck and calling her his pet. She hated how much it turned her on.

“I am aware of your name. You gave it at the doctor’s office, if you recall,” he replied with an amused chuckle. “Little oneis a term of endearment. And to be fair, you arequitesmaller than me.”

“That’san understatement. How tallareyou?”

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